Someone to Watch Over Me
by ABakerStreetIrregular
Summary: John is tired and Sherlock is paranoid, but in the end, there's nothing better than knowing someone will be there for you when things get dark. Please review, this is my first fanfic. Thanks!


A car backfired in the street, sounding entirely too much like gunfire, and John Watson found himself bolt upright in the dark, his hand reaching automatically for the Browning pistol that had been tucked into the back of his Levis for the past three days. But it wasn't there, and he remembered why now, he'd put it away last night when he walked in the door, tired of the very sight of it. But he could feel the gun's heavy weight there still, and rubbed his lower back absently, groaning as his body protested the movement, and those three days rushed back over him in a blur.

It had begun typically enough with he and Sherlock pursuing a suspect, an oily and too clever love-them-leave-them-bankrupt Lothario, all over Hell and back. Ultimately, of course, they cornered the slippery bastard, and during the subsequent brief but violent scrap, Romeo had emptied his gun in their general direction. Fortunately for them he had been a piss poor shot, but there really are so few things as exhilarating as being shot at without result. When they had the man in hand and subdued, John had barely prevented Sherlock, who was by that time deep in a single-minded rage, from savaging him with his bare hands, and he was happy when they were at last able to surrender the bugger to DI Lestrade and the Yard.

Then they were back at the flat, where John sat down with a cup of tea, his adrenaline high wore off far too quickly, and he promptly fell asleep, cheek on fist, at the small table in the living room. He had managed a sip or two of the tea but hadn't managed to take off his shoes.

He blinked into the dim room, trying to judge the time by the watery light filtering through the window. Only the halogen glow of streetlights, so it was still early, and that meant time enough to get some real sleep, a soft bed being a far preferable medium to that end than a small, and very hard, wooden chair. The mere thought of his pajamas and being prostrate was heavenly, and as he smiled to himself the offending noises from the street dwindled away and the flat fell silent. Silent? Wait, where had Sherlock gotten to?

As a rule, there could be any number of answers to that particular question. In the kitchen dissecting whatever he had nicked from Bart's, making ardent love to his Strad, tumbled awkwardly into a chair with his laptop or draped over the couch professing crippling ennui and brooding fit to blister the paint. (This only when he didn't have John's pistol in hand, blowing holes in the wall and destroying Mrs. Hudson's hideous wallpaper.)

John's eyes had adjusted by this time, and all the familiar things in the room began to assume their normal shapes and places. The skull print on the wall, the spray-painted saffron smiley with bullet-hole eyes, the music stand with Sherlock's violin case resting at its feet, mismatched lamps on their respective tables, and all the miscellaneous stacks of boxes, books and trunks.

There, deceptively calm in the midst of his own chaos, stretched out on the couch like a carved figure from a medieval sarcophagus' capstone, and by all appearances miraculously asleep, was Sherlock.

As always he was a perfect study in black and white, the elegant hands usually found enthusiastically skimming over corpses and crime scenes or steepled under his chin in deep contemplation were instead lying passively on belly and hip. The inky hair seemed almost to absorb this light, becoming one solid shadow curling artlessly here and there, across the high forehead and against the perfect column of his neck, against that pale as marble skin that was somehow leached paler still in the faint light. His face was turned slightly away, and John could see the beginnings of a livid bruise, bestowed by the fist of the aforementioned criminal, gracing one impossible cheekbone with a rude smear of color. That is the only color in his face really, besides the twin crescents of sooty eyelashes and the very faint pinkness of his lips.

He had shed jacket, shoes and socks, rucked his sleeves up to the elbow before collapsing, and John can see the corded muscle in one long thin forearm. The Dr. part of John's brain surfaces unbidden and he thinks that he simply cannot allow this man to become any thinner. Tomorrow he is going to make him eat even if it means funneling it down his throat like a Strasbourg goose.

Sherlock hasn't stirred, is lying so still in fact, John can scarcely see his chest rise and fall with his breathing. His heart clenched hard as he remembers Homer's quote, what was it exactly? Something about sleep being the brother of death?

Sadly, it isn't a difficult stretch to imagine him dead, and neither is this the first time this thought has crossed John's mind. What a tragedy that would be, the supercollider brain stilled, the bright and vital spark carelessly snuffed. The worst part is that he invited it, rarely ate, seldom slept, and courted danger like a lover, forever racing into danger without any thought of the consequences, who might be hurt in the end, or who might be left behind.

This black thought of Sherlock _not being_ anymore is suddenly so heavy, so unexpected and unwelcome, John finds he cannot swallow, can't even breathe, past the lump in his throat.

When he had returned from Afghanistan, John had been rather lost, and when he had found this man, God help him, he had felt himself delivered. Let it be said that sharing his life with Sherlock was a dubious blessing at times. He could be confusing, was very often infuriating, witheringly sarcastic and staggeringly tactless. By that same turn he was also witty, possessed of a devastating charm, and was undeniably brilliant, could even be heroic when he could get his ego out of the way, but that was only reluctantly so even at the best of times. For John he was all this, and he brought the purposeless, grey, day-to-day shuffle back to vivid, violent life, and if, (no, _when_, he knew it was inevitable), he lost him John thought it was entirely possible that it would kill him.

Still he couldn't swallow, his heart was hammering and his lungs were starting to burn. Christ, this was like being underwater, he thought, everything washed in blue, and he was drowning on this one heartbreaking thought. He's half-asleep and choking, staring into the dark with stinging eyes, and when Sherlock's lips part and he finally speaks it's like something out of a dream.

"You're awfully maudlin when you're tired. Must you despair so loudly?" the warm baritone was rough with sleep, but no less thrilling for it, and John felt his breath leave him in a grateful rush.

"You," he tried to smile, to make it light, but his mouth twisted and he cursed the catch in his voice, "sleep like a cat."

He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, tried to rub away the crease between his eyebrows, and found his head was starting to throb. He was a little angry, angry that he let himself fall into that hole of pointless worry, looked down from the bottom, and gotten caught at it. He was never at his best in the middle of the night, it was too easy for all the things that dwelt in the darker recesses of his brain to come out to torment him.

"What time is it?" Sherlock asks.

"Early."

Sherlock stretches and it's like an explosion. Long arms shooting out over his head and he's growling with the effort and the pleasure of it, joints popping, naked toes curling and creaking against the leather, his lanky body all at once far too long for the sofa. He relaxed just as abruptly, sighing till he couldn't possibly have any more breath, falling into a messy heap, half on, half off the sofa, coming to rest as if someone has thrown him there. Then he unfolded himself neatly to his feet, went to the window and looked out at the street.

"Bed," he stated simply. Seeing that John hasn't moved, he comes to look down into his face, typically and unapologetically appraising.

_He's fallen asleep in his clothes again. His hair is silver in this light, and his eyes are- what? Angry? There are blue smudges under them and all the lovely lines in his face have deepened. His cheeks are hollow, he is far too thin, these last days. Perhaps tomorrow I'll take him to that curry restaurant he likes so much. Yes, he'll like that. But how to content him now?_

"Are you okay?"

John can tell he is genuinely concerned, silvery eyes all aglow in his sharp white face. His hair is tousled and loose, clothes slightly rumpled, the dove grey dress shirt unbuttoned and showing an sliver of white skin, accentuating the graceful neck. Being so effortlessly beautiful at such an ungodly hour of the morning was really fucking unfair, John thought sourly.

"Fine- I'm fine." It came out sharper that he had intended and at Sherlock's look of 'That wasn't very convincing', John smiled weakly, more of a grimace really, and scrubbed his trembling left hand through his hair, making it stand on end, "I'm sorry. I'm knackered and my bloody leg aches."

Sherlock didn't miss the shaking hand or the mention of the aching leg, of course he didn't, and his eyes soften. "No, I'm sorry. You wouldn't be in this state if it weren't for me."

John's smile is tight, "No, I wouldn't."

"I did warn you." This isn't an accusation, only the simplest fact.

"Yes, yes you did. And yet, here I am." John's mouth had compressed itself into a thin line, and he's still trying vainly to rub away the headache blooming between his eyes.

"Maybe you can think of some way I can make it up to you."

John looked up, the line between his eyes easing and his mouth stretching into a smile that was still rueful but bordered on wicked.

"I think I could, now you mention it."

Sherlock bent over him then, one long finger under his chin tilting John's head up and just so, and John was stunned as ever by how perfectly their mouths fit together. It was a gentle kiss, almost chaste, until John opened his mouth under Sherlock's, a little noise of want, _need_, in his throat, making Sherlock hum and deepen the kiss, make it a bit dirty. Seizing John's left hand in his own, Sherlock pressed it hard against the cool flesh of his chest, and the feeling of Sherlock's heart pounding fast under his palm was good as a tonic, and the tremor faded.

_~This beats only for you, and no one will be stopping it any time soon.~_

This unspoken, unmistakable pledge and assurance surrounded John like a blanket, and he could suddenly breathe a bit better as the knot in his chest uncoiled itself.

_John deserves tenderness, all I can give him, and much more besides. This is so good, he is so good and what did I ever do to deserve him? Someone tell me and I'll do it twice a day. His lips are so soft, he smells like soap and gunpowder, tastes like salt and cinnamon stick tea with honey and good God I could kiss him forever, just like this, but he's melting in my hands and I really ought to just take him to bed this second and ravish him until he can't move. _

This is what Sherlock thought, but what he said, again, is, "Bed."

"Bed," John agrees.

Later, after a bout of greedy, bone-shaking sex, John is lying warm against Sherlock's side, and though he is deliciously tired, Sherlock's mind is still whirring.

He's going over and over something John had said just before he had taken him the last time. It had been so good, skin sliding deliciously against skin, the press of lips and eager fingers and tangle of legs and tongues, and John solid against his back, his breath coming in short little pants, he had pressed a hot kiss to Sherlock's neck and whispered;

"You're going to burn me up one of these days."

_Burn me up._

He was, he could see it, the last few days were proof and the words had come from Johns own lips. Now his heart was aching, and he couldn't bear it.

_No. No. No. No. No. Not now, not yet. It's too soon. I warned him this would happen, and I was right. What made me think I could have him? He is so earnest, and so good, and I am so well and truly fucked up, how long will it be before John realizes that, really sees that, and he leaves me. But he has stayed so far, hasn't he? Through various assassination attempts, kidnappings, a few rounds of drug induced psychosis, all the stony silences, petulant sulks, rages, and still he stayed. I warned him that it would all get to be too much, but still he chose to stay. _

He must have made some small noise, because John stirred, sighed, and Sherlock turned so they lay face to face, wrapping his arms more tightly around him to just have him _closer_, earning him a satisfied little grunt.

_Love is such an awful, messy business anyway, whose variables are infinite and can't be predicted and aren't there more important things to give my attention to? Things that can be pulled apart and studied? I do that with most people and I don't give a damn, most often as simple matter of course, but with John its different. I don't want to hurt him, ever. Perhaps he does care as deeply as he professes and he will stay…_

"Idiot," John mumbled, affectionate, with a warm little huff of air against his neck, "I do. I will. Now go to sleep."


End file.
